Chapter 356: How to Sever the Ley Line Shackles
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 356: How to Sever the Ley Line Shackles
The Abyssal Demon Great World.
A lone figure walked across this desolate land. Wherever she passed, all things recoiled. She wore the iconic robes of a witch and held a long-handled wand in her right hand. At the tip of the wand, mana surged, stirring ripples that acted as the only light within the Abyss, illuminating the blood-red skies of this territory.
The lowest-tier demons of the Abyss crumbled into dust before they could even lay eyes on her.
She walked with unhurried composure toward the palace where the lord of this domain resided.
"Weakening Witch, this is no place for you!"
A voice suddenly rang out, speaking in the language of witches. Had it not been for the tremor in the speaker's tone, one might have thought they were a truly formidable figure.
The one addressed as the Weakening Witch was none other than Dean Mei Lind, who had departed earlier. She did not halt her pace. Each crisp click of her footsteps on the ground sounded like a countdown timer for the Abyssal Lord’s life.
Death was not terrifying to an Abyssal demon, but waiting for death to arrive exactly on schedule was a profound insult!
He was the ruler of this Abyssal territory!
Countless demons across this land were under his command, yet now, because of his weakness, he was to become a laughingstock for other demons—his end treated as a mere farce to be spectated.
"Weakening Witch! What do you think this place is?! This is the Abyssal Demon Great World! It is no place for a witch! Get out! This is my domain!" The demon bellowed every word, trying to mask the terror in his heart.
"You were the one who deployed that Blackstone Troll, weren't you? To dare touch one of mine... you truly have no idea how to spell the word 'death'."
Mei Lind looked at the Demon Lord, who had been forced to show himself because he could no longer withstand the pressure. Her expression was one of utter indifference.
The Demon Lord opened his mouth to speak, only to find he had lost the ability to even move his jaw. He tried to flee, but he couldn't even turn around.
He looked down to find his legs could no longer support his weight. He collapsed to his knees. When he looked up again, the witch who struck primal terror into his soul was already standing before him.
Mei Lind raised her hand. The demon’s chest abruptly disintegrated, and a beating demon heart, radiating endless Abyssal power, was stripped from his body.
"I'm done playing with you all. Xiao Han must be getting anxious waiting for me."
Those were the last words the demon heard. A moment later, he crashed to the ground.
With his heart violently torn out, he knew his status as a Demon Lord was over, even if he hadn't died quite yet.
Such was the nature of demons; even without a heart, he would not perish immediately. But he knew he was finished. He had lost his most vital source of power. In this land, he would be devoured by the very demons he once ruled!
Chaos and disorder, cruelty and tyranny... this was the Abyss, a place where no rules existed. Strength was the only law. Absolute strength created absolute rule; such was the way of an Abyssal Demon Lord.
Throughout the region, countless other Abyssal Demon Lords felt a surge of fury but dared not speak out. That was the Weakening Witch, a woman who had made a name for herself over a thousand years ago. Her Great Weakening Spell had caused countless enemies to fall on the battlefield.
By the time she became famous and earned the title of Weakening Witch, she had already mastered 1,779 spell derivations within the Great Weakening Spell sequence. Everyone knew her Great Spellbook had permanently sunk into the Main World Consciousness during that great war, but it had been leaked a few centuries ago during an invasion of the Main World that her spell derivations for the Weakening sequence had exceeded ten thousand!
Even without her Great Spellbook, she could still crush any arrogant enemy.
And now, only Mei Lind herself knew that her Weakening derivations had reached 15,997. She planned to derive three more to satisfy her obsessive-compulsive tendencies before setting them aside for a while.
Now that she had found the [Transcendent Knowledge] for her Great Weakening Spell, her focus needed to shift.
Mei Lind waved her hand, and a light screen projected an image. It showed the scene in the Underground District of Ninglan New City.
"Truly... a madwoman. Don't go getting yourself killed..." Mei Lind sighed. She waved the image away, and the witch vanished from the Abyssal Demon Great World.
* * *
Back in the Underground District, the Abyssal Blackstone Troll was rampaging indiscriminately, driven mad by its loss of vision and agonizing pain.
The Acidic Curse corroded its eyeballs every time they tried to regenerate. Every time it overcame the curse and recovered most of its sight, it would trigger an Explosive Trap. This relentless cycle of agony was more than it could bear.
But what drove it to true despair was that just moments ago, its connection to the Abyss had been severed!
It could no longer feel the link to its Abyssal Demon Lord, which meant it could not return...
At this point, it had truly gone insane. No one could stop it; they could only watch as the monster tore through the Underground District.
"Even Yang Yuehan can't completely destroy this monster?"
"What do we do? Are we just going to wait here to die? But... but those Dream Demons were all killed. As long as we clear out the Nightmares... we should be able to go back..."
"Don't be afraid... that monster can't hurt us. It's clearly targeting Yang Yuehan."
"Are we just going to stand here and watch the show?"
"Go help if you're so brave. It's not like she'd be grateful anyway."
"I think the truth is none of us can help. How can the gap between people be this large?"
"She's a Child of Destiny, don't you see?"
"But... maybe we are too."
"How is that possible? If I were a Child of Destiny, I'd be just as powerful as that witch."
Those who couldn't help huddled together, whispering. After the initial terror, they realized their lives weren't in immediate danger, and many grew bolder. The boundary between dream and reality was their greatest shield.
The only ones truly suffering were the residents of the Underground District.
Faced with calamity, they were helpless. Faced with the one they thought was their savior, they found her unreliable. Despair began to spread.
In that moment, Ninglan Qiuyue stepped forward. She knew that if this atmosphere continued to fester, the entire Underground District would fall into self-destruction before the crisis even ended.
Ninglan Qiuyue’s individual strength was limited, but one could not forget her status at the Beyonder Research Base or her connection to the Captain of the Ground Patrol. Connections were bonds.
Furthermore, she had learned from the Ground Patrol that her brother, Ninglan Qiuyu, had been colluding with the Dream Demons...
Now that the brother who had always loomed over her was walking the path of self-destruction, a thought she had never dared to entertain before resurfaced... to become the first female City Lord of Ninglan New City.
Ninglan Qiuyue quickly shook the thought away. She knew now was not the time for delusions. If Ninglan New City was wiped out, her ambition would be nothing but a joke.
She knew exactly what she had to do: everything within her power. She would handle what she could, waiting for the right opportunity to arise so she could ride the tide of fate...
Often, success wasn't about how hard one worked, but whether one could wait for the right opportunity and seize it.
For the average person, hard work wasn't meant to trigger a miraculous reversal of fate; it was meant to ensure that when an opportunity appeared, they were prepared to grab it firmly.
When it came to the turning points of great events, choice always mattered more than effort. After all, when the wind is strong enough, even a pig can fly.
For now, she had to at least settle the civilians of the Underground District, give them hope, and organize all available forces to stabilize the situation. She needed to build a foundation among the people and raise a steadfast banner of hope...
* * *
"Is it really this simple..."
I let go, and the Dream Demon dropped to the ground. Although I hadn't managed to summarize any Dream Demon Spells from it, time was running out.
All I needed was to understand how to exist in the dreamscape in a soul state. It was enough to simulate the form of a Nightmare within the dream. In a way, this was a type of "Transformation Magic," except the target of the transformation was a Dream Demon within a dream.
While choosing this monster to sever my Ley Line Shackles wasn't my only option, one thing was certain: its attacks were stronger than mine. If even its power couldn't sever the shackles, then I truly would have to wait for the Dean to intervene.
I didn't know if the Dean was watching right now, but at the very least, I had proven that I tried. The rest was up to destiny.
Without hesitation, I faced the monster once more. When my attack landed, it was instantly enraged again. It recognized me; it knew that all its current misery was the fault of this witch!
First, she had blinded it and vanished, and now she was dancing in front of it again. How could it not be furious?
In an instant, countless attacks surged toward me. But this level of power... wasn't enough.
I had to force it to use its strongest strike.
"Is that all you've got?! Did you skip breakfast?!"
I mocked it while dodging its attacks. Though it hadn't spoken a word and likely didn't understand our language, it seemed to grasp the intent.
The monster became even more berserk. Abyssal power erupted from its body, its pitch-black scales flared out, and plumes of steam hissed from its flesh as a wave of heat rolled outward.
Then, the energy within the monster began to converge.
"That's it?"
Seeing it charging up for a finishing move, I was momentarily stunned. I hadn't expected it to be this easy.
But the opportunity was fleeting. I reacted quickly, gripping the White Crystal Transcendent item once more.
As I pushed the Transcendent item to its limit, my body began to wither again. This time, I didn't hold back. One had to be ruthless toward oneself!
At that moment, the onlookers in the distance saw me engage the demon again and turned their attention toward us.
But before the fight had even properly begun, the demon was provoked into preparing its ultimate move.
And at this critical juncture, the Yang Yuehan they had pinned their hopes on... killed herself first. Again.
Though they had seen this maneuver before and knew she had a Resurrection Spell, they still couldn't understand why.
Until an invisible blade began to coalesce on the battlefield. Its chilling, sharp aura made everyone's spine tingle, especially those who possessed Luck Seeds.
Because this was the strike generated by a Transcendent item—a blade meant to completely sever the connection between luck and an individual.
This invisible blade was forged from the entirety of my flesh and blood. In the final moment of my physical consciousness, I issued my final command: Strike me.
Slash!
The swing was silent, yet the sound echoed in everyone's hearts, as if the blade had truly severed something as it fell.
And indeed, it had.
In the next heartbeat, all the luck on my body snapped. Golden threads of luck danced through the air.
I closed my eyes, satisfied.
Just as everyone thought it was over, a phantom figure emerged from my husk.
This time, it wasn't like before, where my consciousness entered the dream while its vessel withered in reality. At this moment, I was being carried by the dream in the form of a soul. Combined with the mimicry I had mastered from the Dream Demon, my soul existed by simulating the form of a Dream Demon.
After a flash of nothingness, I opened my "eyes" and received information from the outside world. Though this form was incredibly disorienting... I had succeeded.
Once I confirmed my success, the first thing I did was look back at my withered physical shell. The Ley Line Shackles extended from the body to my soul.
This was the Ley Line Shackle I truly needed to sever!
The power of the Ley Lines existed even within the dreamscape. I had learned this during the Dream Exchange Competition; after all, those simulated scenes were generated by the power of the Ley Lines.
The Ley Lines within the dream... I could easily sever them using a Dream Rewriting Spell. I had no doubt about that, because even now, I couldn't measure just how terrifying the offensive power of a Dream Rewriting Spell could be.
After all, it was the power to rewrite the dream itself!
If only that monster could have been killed within the dream. If it could, then even if it were dragged into the dream by a Nightmare Spell for a single second, I would have had the means to kill it.
But it was essentially a creature of reality. Dying in a dream would only result in its "resurrection," much like the students, with nothing more than some mental damage.
But for the Ley Line Shackles of reality, the only thing I could utilize right now was this monster's full-power strike.
A combined strike of dream and reality. The target: the final Ley Line Shackle between my soul and my body.
Once severed...
From then on, I would be completely free from the world's constraints, free from the script!
This thought stimulated my mind to the point of madness, driving me to use the Dream Rewriting Spell without any restraint.
And this was the first time I had displayed such an offensive stance before everyone in this manner!
The ground within the dream shattered, and buildings began to float. The spectators scattered like startled birds in the face of this anomaly.
I kneaded the creations within the dream into massive spikes that hovered behind me. With a wave of my hand, the sheer pressure of these gargantuan objects hammered at everyone's nerves, challenging their very perception of reality.
It was like facing a natural disaster summoned by a god. Helplessness and panic spread through their hearts—a fear born from the depths of their souls.
But in my eyes, I saw only that single Ley Line Shackle.
I had only one chance. I couldn't afford a single mistake. The best choice was to strike simultaneously with the monster, severing the shackles of dream and reality together.
I waited for the perfect timing, silently accumulating power.
A moment later, the Abyssal power gathered by the monster reached its limit. It slowly opened its maw, and a terrifying force erupted from within.
Facing this strike, I launched my full offensive alongside it.
Countless dream constructs slammed into the Ley Line Shackle. The Blackstone Troll's attack did the same. The two forces converged, colliding violently as if breaking through the boundary between reality and dream.
But both were aimed at the Ley Line Shackle.
A violent explosion and its aftershocks rippled outward. Even I instinctively raised my arms to shield myself.
The massive cloud of dust was blown away by the surging Transcendent energy. For a moment, I felt the Ley Line Shackle tremble and shatter.
But in the next instant, the smile in my eyes froze.
The Ley Line Shackle appeared completely unscathed. Facing these two incredibly powerful strikes from dream and reality... a single seed now hung suspended between the two realms.
"A Luck Seed?!"
I looked at the seed in disbelief, then glanced at the Transcendent item that had long since fallen to the ground in reality. That Luck Seed was still perfectly encased within the white crystal.
This... was a brand-new Luck Seed!
In that moment, the luck I had previously severed seemed to find a home, surging violently into the new Luck Seed.
Immediately after, a wisp of luck drifted out from the seed, carrying a will that echoed in my mind.
[Accept... and you shall be my only child.]